In April 2010, Astronomers Without Borders created Global Astronomy Month (GAM) to continue the excitement of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009).  GAM 2010 was a good start, and we anticipated having more programs and partners for this year’s second edition.  But what we ended up with – in participants, programs and partners – far exceeded our most optimistic expectations.

After a month long non-stop roller costar ride of astronomy in all kinds of format, we have come to the last day of GAM2011. Before I go on about how great it has been, what’s going to happened next, what to expect next year. Let’s take a little breather (I know I do want one after a busy month) and see how it all came together as “Global Astronomy Month”.

Early April. The sun shines almost horizontally at this time of the year onto the buildings of New College in Oxford. This centuries old institution has seen many students and professors since its foundation in 1379. This week however, the college is looking to the future, the future of Astronomy and new media, as it hosts .Astronomy 3.

Back in October 2009, inspired by the July celebrations for the first Moon landing, I started my research on earth-moon-earth technology (EME), determined to make an art project with it. My mind was overwhelmed by listening for the first time to sounds that bounced off the moon's surface, their distortion being so evocative of the long journey made by the radio waves from the Earth to the Moon and back! I imagined how images and colors would look like after bouncing off the Moon's surface and that's when OPTICKS and my collaboration with the CAMRAS team began.

If you are reading this, then you probably have already seen this phrase before: April is Global Astronomy Month.

This little phrase is slowly entering the minds of astronomers, be they hobby, sidewalk, or researchers of the subject. And along with this phase comes a whole range of tags, related events that are also starting to be a part of the yearly calendar of “mandatory” astronomy related events. Tags like “Global Star Party”, “Lyrid Watch”, “Saturn Watch”, and of course “SunDay”.

For the third consecutive year we celebrate SunDay, the second during the “reign” of Global Astronomy Month.

It all started during the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (seems like a million years ago), with a “little” event called 100 Hours of Astronomy

International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) was inspired by you. You, and people just like you, who are curious about the Moon and would like to find out more about Earth's nearest neighbor. On August 1, 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team celebrated LRO's successful journey to and orbital insertion around the Moon by hosting a public outreach event called "We're at the Moon!" at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, MD.

It starts with a question, how can we share Astronomy with children? It’s a question we ask ourselves whenever we get an invitation to conduct programs for children. What should we do to engage children in Astronomy? How can we change the current methods of teaching Astronomy for Children?

Dark skies are a precious resource for any budding astronomer. I would know. I grew up in Staten Island, New York. My little telescope and I fought the glare from one of the largest cities in the world for most of my formative years. In the end, I was never very good with an optical telescope. I’m still not, though that hasn’t stopped me from becoming an astronomer.

Family observing with DSBK. Dark skies also mean rambunctious kids, so we outfit them with glowing bracelets to keep track! Image credit: DSBK, Rachael Beaton

April 2011 will see MESSENGER begin the science phase of its orbital mission at Mercury, and should, I think, also see the start of Dawn's approach observations of Vesta. At Mars, Opportunity is back on the road again, rolling inexorably toward Endeavour. At Saturn, Cassini will continue its focus on Saturn and Titan science. Before I go into mission-by-mission detail, here's Olaf Frohn's marvelous map of where all of our explorers are on March 1. Compare it to last month's diagram to see how things have moved.

As an ex-solar physicist, I've been watching the sun with fascination as its activity predictably ebbs and flows over an 11-year cycle. However, in recent years, our nearest star has delivered some surprises.

In May 2009, I jokingly remarked in a Discovery News article that the "sun is being really boring." This was in response to the extended solar minimum that had turned our usually dynamic and explosive sun into a spotless, quiescent disk.

Back then, the sun's lull had extended to 18 months after the start of Solar Cycle 24. Today, the sun is exploding with activity, crackling with solar flares and blasting the Earth's atmosphere with energetic plasma.

Earlier this year, the sun unleashed two "X-class" solar flares, the most powerful X-ray emitting flares the sun can produce. The last time we saw one of these was back in December 2006 when the previous solar cycle (Solar Cycle 23) was coming to an end.

In March, solar observatories also saw an immense coronal mass ejection (CME) blast a billion tons of plasma into space, some of which hit our atmosphere, creating a beautiful auroral display in our atmosphere.